By Oh Young-jin
Assistant Managing Editor
Days after Christmas, I am still stuck in it.
Not because I am a big fan of the occasion or trying to cope with a nasty hangover from a shindig, but because this year I feel cheated out of my gift.
I am waiting for my Santa Claus to bring me a gift. It was on the eve of my sixth Christmas that I saw my parents put a package of gifts near my pillow. That reinforced my premonition that the big fella, with a generous white beard, dressed in red attire traveling on a reindeer sleigh all over the world across time zones on a single night, was bogus.
Nearly 40 years later, I find myself waiting for the same guy with renewed determination.
Maybe, during the intervening years, I have become wise enough to see that the truth is tricky to get a firm handle on. In other words, I now know that, just because I don't see it, it doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist. For the five previous Christmases preceding my sixth, the Santa with a red nose may have visited me, but failed to deliver a gift for naughty things I did.
Reaching this point in thought, I am now giving the benefit of the doubt to the spirit of St. Nicholas and wonder what is delaying his arrival. So I retrace his possible routes to my apartment (with no chimney, but a door on one side and glass windows on the other). First, in case he is traveling across Europe and via the Middle East, the journey is full of troubles. Perhaps, he is entangled as mediator between Germans and the rest of Europe as they struggle for a united front to resolve the global financial crisis. It would be hard to knock some sense into the head of Merkel, whose party is facing general elections, or reason with Sarkozy, or bring cheer to Brown. My Santa may not be leaving without soothing the poor people of Iceland, which is now a socialist country that is a workers' dystopia.
Even if he made it out of Europe, in all likelihood, he has to avoid a rain of bombs by Israelis or indiscriminate rockets fired by Hamas in retaliation. It is deplorable to see Israelis pick Jesus' birthday to attack its arch-foes. Then again, Christmas is a pagan concept to Jews, who celebrate Hanukkah. I am ready to spare them one occasion of using a holy day to kill people (I know I am treading dangerous waters, considering things religious often prove to be more inflammatory than ideologies).
I just hope that Santa can make it safe out of Pakistan and India, the two nuclear nations that have so far managed to avoid another war after the Mumbai attacks. In return for their mutual restraint from throwing the first punch at the other, I would gladly forfeit my Christmas gift this year.
In the event Santa is sleighing his way through Russia on a trans-Artic route, Rudolf needs an extra blessing from God. As a result of global warming, the amount of ice at the North Pole is fast dwindling, so Rudolf the Reindeer may get stranded on a small piece of floating iceberg, forcing a choice between sink and swim (Santa, in his attire, may be running a greater chance of drowning).
During his layover in Russia, his host Vladimir Putin is not in a mood to welcome him, with oil prices tanking and stock markets swooning. A cranky Putin may turn out to be trigger-happy, being unsatisfied with how things went in Georgia. The prime minister waiting to be president again may reminisce about his KGB days and shoot anything out of the sky with his hunting rifle.
China is also not an easy place for Santa to make rounds, and not because it is a Buddhist nation. After all, Buddhism is an encompassing religion that is less unilateral than others, at least in its teachings. My suggestion to Santa is not to let his guard down on pollution. The Beijing Olympics is said to have raised the level of public awareness in the world's most populous country, but it is still a country run by communists, who are often unpredictable, if North Korea can be any indication. A consolation is that the ongoing global crisis is forcing the industrial behemoth to take a rest, giving Santa better air to breathe.
The third possible route for Santa and his coterie is through North America.
There are a lot of forlorn souls on the East Coast alone.
Santa may be losing his precious traveling time arguing with Bush, who still wants his Christmas gift for all the good things he has done during his eight-year watch as U.S. president. It would be timesaving to give him one, but in return for a promise that he remains isolated in his Crawford, Texas, ranch. Please skip New York where those fat cats think they deserve more than others and always get more.
Then, on his way through the Midwest, I sincerely hope that Santa will remain safe, dodging shots from a Smith and Wessen rifle fired by a wayward member of the National Rifle Association.
If anybody saw Santa stuck in a traffic jam in the middle of Seoul, pass him my best regards and tell him that I would be happy to wait for him until next year on condition that he drops by at Cheong Wa Dae and asks President Lee Myung-bak to listen to what people say.